Playing Red Dead Redemption in 2022

Rockstar Games get endless praise for pretty much all of their various games and that's definitely praise we learned and I think one of their best by far is Red Dead Redemption and say it's the winner of countless Game of the Year Awards even though that's a bit of a moot point considering that applies to half the games they've worked on but I still think it's biggest achievement is just perfectly capturing that feeling of playing as a gunslinger in the west the kind of guy who chews up rocks and spits out gravel one of the best video game protagonists of all time John Marston I got me warning Williamson boys I got a new one of them idiots you give Marshalls a bad name I like this game so much that I even platinumed it twice on my PS3 once for my first time playthrough and then another time after my PS3 died and I felt like I had a sense of Duty to go back in there and do the whole thing again it of course went on to spawn a prequel Red Dead Redemption 2 a game that I still have mixed feelings over mostly I think for just how it kind of made me feel like I was playing in slow motion half the time and I know that people will sing that game's high praises until their throats are sore but I've gotta say for me Redemption is the best of the Wild Bunch so far what's kind of interesting is that we don't even know the existence of this franchise to Rockstar to begin with nah man the first game in the series was Red Dead Revolver which was originally been developed by Capcom as far back as the year 2000. still remember seeing that old E3 video for their version of the game and I gotta say I still think that version looks pretty awesome it's sure a hell of a lot different to what we got in the final product somewhere along the way though it seems Rockstar took over development and finished it off and as a result it doesn't quite feel like a rockstar game because it isn't you can really see the influence from both studios here I think the wacky characters the arcade gameplay and the art style is very Capcom but then the dialogue and the music most of which is taken from a whole bunch of actual Spaghetti Westerns is just pure rock star and yeah it's a pretty good soundtrack don't get me wrong I even heard a few tracks in there that Django Unchained borrowed still though there's more to again than just the music and despite this interesting mix of developers which is really kind of like oil and water if you stop to think about it Red Dead Revolver just wasn't a very good game and time I don't think's been kind to it either now I know you can't always trust review scores but there is a reason why this game is one of Rockstar's lowest rated titles and part of that reason too why you don't ever really hear people talking about it the stories you're playing as a bounty hunter named red Harlow whose parents are killed in the pro-life by some kind of mysterious stranger I reckon your paws better off dead a few moments later he's later halfway through a marathon of collecting bounties unwanted criminals red then finds out that the guy responsible is still alive and tries to track him down we ain't telling you nothing stranger but outside of the title and the premise though like it almost has nothing to do with Redemption there are definite similarities though I mean I've always kind of thought that Red's appearance is very similar to John's was and the character Annie Stokes is more or less just Bonnie McFarlane she's a blonde haired acid-tongued Ranch owner who has to defend her home when it's attacked by Bandits yeah it kind of sounds familiar there's a hub town called Brimstone where you can visit the General Store you can buy guns and head to the Sheriff's office to pick up bounties now I reckon you could really lie in your pockets if you don't mind hunting down a woman plus this game also introduced the Dead Eye and the dueling mechanic both of which were pretty big features for the rest of the series but apart from that though like it's just a bit of a forgettable run-of-the-mill shooter every mission is just kind of made up of like a small Deathmatch style Arena where you fight waves of enemies as they spawn in eventually then taken on some kind of boss or bosses before the holding ends and look yeah that might be fine only the shooting is just kind of awful aiming feels stiff and unresponsive the game just often flat out ignores your inputs and every single enemy in the game here are just complete bullet sponges it also just feels schizophrenic I mean at one point you're fighting clown midgets and a circus ringleader who spits out fire and teleports all over the place yeah what the [ __ ] yeah don't even get me started on the melee combat with these really crazy difficulty spikes with some of the bosses the whole thing's just a bit of a slug to get through the option to play it on the PS4 or the Xbox series X in like a quasi remastered version I mean it is kind of cool but there's just no reason to really go back and replay this unless you want to see the deformed offspring of what happens when two polar opposite developers butt heads to make a video game how thank you for coming I'll see you in hell nah man the best thing to come out of Red Dead Revolver is Red Dead Redemption and I mean that's why you're all here anyway right will you ride with us all right thank you John Marston it's gonna be a bloody job I don't think I know any other kinds when Red Dead Redemption was released in 2010 I feel like playing through it was really one of those one-of-a-kind experiences and by that I mean like we didn't really have western themed games on that kind of scale back then a battle that comes to mind before this was Gunn and the call away res series what Rockstar essentially did here was take the same formula they'd used in their other open world titles and apply it to a western themed game in the early 20th century around the time in early iteration of the FBI is forming and bringing Lauren order to the country you're playing as John Marston a former Outlaw now forced to work for the bureau with his family being held hostage and no choice left to follow their orders and hunt down his former comrades bringing these guys in Dead or Alive can we assume one of my commitments is cleared unfortunately nothing is clear to John until your obligations are met you see it turns out that Jon and his gang have a bit of a shady pass the backstory that Red Dead 2 would go on to develop a bit further and it's kind of insinuated that him and his buddies weren't exactly the nicest people in the world world we robbed banks trains help people Ransom we killed people we didn't like so his main goal is to find three of these members Bill Williamson Javier escuelia escuelia and then the leader of the gang Dutch vanderland a guy who's supposed to be charismatic enough to sell ice to the eskimos I think that's what they call two for the price of one out here in this wonderful place working with the bureau supposed to be his get out of jail free card and the looming threat of his family being harmed is like all the motivation this guy needs but we choose to play a different game so calm down and play along with us during the opening cinematic you get the gist that the error of the so-called Wild West is really coming to an end so Jon kind of sticks out a bit here like a relic from a dying species however that doesn't stop him from being instantly likeable and he really is one of the best video game protagonists of all time I think there's some school children down the way you can go on Friday oh party [ __ ] [ __ ] you just kind of feel this instant connection with the guy and jump right into the role of being this Loki badass taking on the entire County sure somewhere between a threatening stare and the Soldier's arm to the teeth yeah yeah you had me Red Dead redemptions as much of a game as you play as it is something you experience and by that I mean it's not like this super challenging crushing game with all these hardcore missions you're going to be stuck on for hours I mean yeah every now and then you might fail a mission have to restart it but it's more about being on the journey than it is being this super Pro Gamer dropping Bandits with repeating rifles and a six shooter you can still definitely play the game that way if you want to and it is pretty fun to do so but it never really forces you to there's a similar combat system to GTA 4. that being cover shooting combined with a pretty generous lock-on mechanic where you just sort of need to have your camera facing in the general direction of an enemy and then when you aim down the sights it's going to lock on automatically only it is a lot simpler now because this time you've got regenerating Health as opposed to fixed health and then to make it even easier you've got Jon's Dead Eye ability and using that mechanic is going to make you pretty much Unstoppable they've been getting ambushed by a group of bandits in the middle of nowhere becomes a non-issue as you can pretty much just bring time to a standstill Target all of them easily and then shoot before they even get a shot off the weapons start off being pretty basic just being hand-me-down revolvers and repeater rifles but later on you'll start to get better versions along with more modern inclusions like automatic pistols and a bolt action rifle both of which just tear us I mean it's not this super deep complex combat system but it is effective and it's satisfying and those trademark Rockstar physics make return making for gunfights that are almost comical at times with the way that enemies fall and Tumble when they're killed it might also have some of the best rope physics I've ever seen in a video game yeah a big part of the game World here is going off and doing bounties to make extra bank and you're obviously going to get more cash for bringing in someone who's still breathing so that involves less sewing and tying these virtuous upstanding members of society and then hauling their ass back to the nearest town and there's just always something so satisfying about getting these guys with the rope and then reeling them in like there are fat fish on the end of a hawk I'm gonna get you back now if you played a Grand Theft Auto game before which I'm assuming most people have done then you know exactly what you're in for here that being a super long series of story missions combined with a huge amount of side content to see and experience at your own pace from bringing in that never-ending amount of criminals for those fat bounties screwed up cheating at poker games to the point that you can get your money's worth just going off and doing all of this side content alone without even touching the main storyline as for the mission structure it's pretty much the same as the GTA games you head off to a mission Giver on the map you watch an introductory cinematic which gives you a rundown of what you're supposed to be doing then you're sent off on your Merry way I'll race you right now if it makes you happy in the GTA games this would always involve driving some kind of vehicle to get to your destination but of course Red Dead takes place in a Time long before cars ever existed so your main mode of transportation is horses yeah dog horses on the main roads you'll be riding a lot faster and smoother and you've also got to contend with the horse's stamina because if you Tucker these guys out they'll kick you off faster than Adidas kicked off Kanye West all they care about is loading their pockets what I really like to is how to work around for all of this horse riding is by just letting you hold down the x button the entire time to maintain the same speed as your allies in the GTA games you pretty much always had dialogue going on when you were driving which was always pretty much the main form of exposition plus you also had to concentrate on the road and where you were going you though you can just hold down one button and still get the feeling of traversing the world but also be able to focus on what's being said looks like he's holed up at the old pleasance house as a result I find that I always become really invested in these missions and I really care about what the outcome is sorry to hear that sir there's one early on in the game here where you're rushing to a settlement that's been attacked by Bandits and it has this really long build up a year on Horseback with your Posse following this path of Destruction murder and Mayhem that the groups left in the Wake as it becomes obvious that I really don't give a [ __ ] who stands in the way and then by the time you finally get to that farm and track them down I was pretty much frothing at the mouth to kill these guys for what they've done the man has came by and took a sausage they hold up in The Farmhouse and it all ends with a suitably epic shootout as the last Bastion of this group has hunkered down in a house you go on to save the day so yeah mission accomplished right only you still have to listen to the lamentation of the survivors showing you that the damage has already been done you know some man on the government payroll taking money that the rest of us have to pay for with our lives yeah this is a harsh and unforgiving world and John still can't really do much to prevent that it just makes the whole world seem a lot more real and believable as does all these random little encounters you come across with all these complete strangers this could be something pretty basic like coming across a store owner getting robbed orbs someone having their horse stolen there's actually like a concerning amount of horse stealing going on in this game then you can choose whether or not to help these people and if you want to kill lob just restrain those would be Thieves oh you might want to deal with this spelling yourself Ash go to the point here where I would literally stop and help every single NPC I came across marooned out here and actually for a ride to the next town like at one point I was walking around town and had to jump into Samaritan mode to stop some psycho from cutting up some poor lady with a [ __ ] machete I suppose Not all men are bad some of these interactions are scripted too and almost kind of serve as many missions in themselves like coming across some guy who says the love of his life has run away and then I find out later he's talking about his horse you got problems friend oh I ain't got no problems not now that she's back with me and what's always been one that's got a lot of discussion is about this creepy dude you come across in a top hat which a lot of people have often theorized is either God the devil or death just slowly creeping his way into John's life to suggest that maybe his time is coming to an end I don't have a game John listen sometimes I just wish I'd known more about life shut up [ __ ] what I've always like appreciated about Red Dead 2 is that despite being set on this humongous map there's still something that doesn't feel overwhelming about it and comparing both this and the second game back to back I think highlights why I found that Pre-Sequel less exciting to play through more importantly than that too in this game you can get around the map quickly and easily at every town there's like a stagecoach that'll take you anywhere you need to go and if you drop your camper out in the wilderness it also gives you fast travel to essentially any location on the map for free skates good balance between keeping things feeling realistic but also including those kind of elements that you'd really want to see in an open world game you know the kind of mechanics that don't waste the players [ __ ] time I don't know man I just kind of felt like with that second game Rockstar we're more interested in making this giant epic Cowboy simulator then they also forgot they were making something that was supposed to be fun to play through that's I guess why they included a completely pointless feature like your horse realistically getting out of range along with removing fast travel because yeah rockstar I totally want to ride across an entire map in real time to get where I need to be honestly I don't really ever consider this a proper game it's more like an interactive movie that every now and then allows you to do something exciting in Red Dead one all I wanted to do was get to that next mission and see what fun stuff it was going to let me do in Red Dead 2 though all I wanted was for the mission to end so I could actually make my own fun pick the wheel up and part of that too is just also due to the ridiculous amount of missions to get through Red Dead 2 for instance has 107 missions the majority of which nothing really happens whereas Red Dead 1 only has 57 but these are far more memorable and often action-packed so the Story begins with John having to get inside a fort where his old mate Bill Williamson's hiding but to do this he'll need the aid of the local Marshal along with Nigel West Dickens a snake old salesman whose wagon gets turned into like a makeshift Trojan Horse you sir come up here step right up then there's Seth a grave robbing treasure hunter who knows where to find the Gatling gun because someone at Rockstar watched The Wild Bunch and then finally an Irish dude named well Irish who knows where to find ammo for the Gatling gun [ __ ] off boy or this don't concerns you when a man with a sing-song voice tells me to [ __ ] off it always concerns me boy oh it not only gives you a pretty good reason for working alongside all of these random characters but it actually feels like you're working towards a goal and gives you like an overarching objective across the first couple dozen or so missions however before any of that even comes to pass you've got to pay off your debt to Bonnie McFarlane would you mind riding with me to armadillo I've got to get some supplies and I could do with the company of course yeah John got a bit careless at the start there using his torso to catch a bullet and he was just lucky that Bonnie happened to take him in and fix his wounds or else this would have been a really short game Bonnie's not a martial or a bounty hunter she owns a ranch so that means the kind of missions you're going to be doing for her mostly involve things like herding cattle breaking in horses or shooting animals that are trying to attack the livestock you know like an actual Ranch owner I am kind of impressed that they managed to include like such a robust hurting mechanic in the game to begin with and that's kind of good because you're gonna have to do this like two times during the first couple of hours of the game and that does mean that a lot of these starting missions can feel very slow when you've got to direct stray cows back to the herd for like the 50th time you're almost gonna start to wonder why you bought this game to begin with still though it's a lot more exciting than the missions in Red Dead 2 you know unless you're a fan of slowly riding horses for 15-minute intervals listening to people talk the entire time I hope they all make it Anyway by the time you reach armadillo and start working alongside the Marshall is when the game really starts to pick up the pace and this is when this whole First Act just really starts to come together and some of these missions are just Kino with the capital K Let's see we try our hand at racing again there's a meat at Rathskeller you're trying my patience Mr West Dickens Red Dead has without a doubt I think some of the best voice acting and motion capture of all time and I think a big part of why it's also good is that they chose to use relatively unknown voice actors I mean the guy who voices John Marston has about seven credits to his name on IMDb and almost half of those is being Red Dead related it means as a result you're focusing on the dialogue itself instead of the fact that you're listening to Samuel Jackson delivering it or they're just sitting across from Keanu Reeves in some kind of futuristic Diner hey wasn't easy for me either my favorite cinematic is one that happens early on in the game where Bonnie gets kidnapped sorry spoilers and one of the bandits responsible rides on into town to deliver the message Mr Marshall Mr Marshall and this whole scene is just amazingly animated and scripted the way this guy is realistically fighting back against the random movements of his horse his delivery of the dialogue and the way he just looks and sounds like an absolute scumbag I feel like this voice Act is seriously missed out on some kind of award for his performance this isn't land of opportunity mister and I'm giving you the opportunity to get your daughter back and the crazy thing is I don't think we ever see this guy again for the rest of the game I mean we certainly don't see him talking again that's for sure so for this one-off character to be so memorable is a pretty huge Testament to the voice Talent on offer here you boys have a pleasant afternoon yeah it almost kind of downplays Dutch as an antagonist and by the time you finally end up meeting him he just really feels like one more in a long line of memorable people you've already had to interact with let the woman go dutch there's actually a whole lot of depth to all these missions too and not only are they advancing the story but they're also introducing new mechanics to the player remarkable the eyesight of an eagle one of these missions where you're working alongside Nigel West Dickens is one of the first missions where the game teaches you how the Dead Eye mechanic works yeah much like Red Dead Revolver Dead Eye is kind of like this game's version of all the time where you can slow things down and take precise shots against your enemies fine up a bunch of bullets before they can even react it's just an insanely cool mechanic with really awesome sound design and again another reason why I don't like this second game is much considering that they pretty much just copy pasted the same superpower straight over to Arthur anyway not only does this Mission teach you that Deadeye can be used to easily lock onto targets which is going to be very handy moving forward but then it also teaches you that you can use it on lethally shooting the guns out of people's hands ever was shot Dear Boy and this is a pretty big deal because throughout the game here you're constantly getting challenged to jewels I mean there's no gloves slapping or Five Fingers to the Face just someone talking [ __ ] in the middle of the street and just begging to be put in a place that rhymed you're making a big mistake although you're often forced to kill people in Jewels during the story missions for a lot of these Random Encounters you can get through them without any violence at all by targeting and shooting the gun out of someone's hand you know instead of the brains out of their skull in fact if you're good enough you can even shoot the hat off their head for extra swag points let's also talk about how this was the era of morality systems being in every single video game Fallout 3 Infamous Mass Effect and BioShock 2 were all games that let you choose whether or not you are going to be like a shining Beacon of Honor or a giant gaping dick hole that took advantage of every single opportunity you got not only are these missions with Nigel West Dickens memorable and often pretty funny but they're instilling the concept of the core game features you're gonna be using for the next 20 or so hours one of my other favorites is one you do for Seth where you've got to sneak into this mine to find that Gatling gun and then after the whole thing's over you get to push this thing out on the rails and then eventually ride it down the track like it's a mini roller coaster kill my Queen [Music] kind of gets to the point where you've become so distracted with doing side missions for all of these characters and getting caught up in their own little storylines that you almost start to forget while you're there in the first place and then more than that even after you pull off this near perfect ACT of deception infiltrating the fort and gunning down all of these Outlaws you still don't even complete your original goal because somehow Bill manages to escape and get to Mexico this of course ends up with one of the best moments in the entire game when you first arrive in Mexico and have to ride to the nearest town hearing that Jose Gonzalez song playing in the background all the way I think I put this in like the top 10 most memorable moments in video games definitely at least when it comes to the use of the soundtrack I mean it's up there with snake climbing the world's longest ladder in Metal Gear Solid 3 and James finding out the truth in Silent Hill too [Music] all you had to do up until this point was pretty much capture one person and it all seems so simple but instead he got away and now you're in a new territory with no idea where he is or where he's gone you've got no allies you've got no friends you've just got this giant new Uncharted era to explore the vastness of the open world starts to set in and the impossible nature of this task starts to seem even more daunting and on top of now having to still find Bill you also now need to find Javier so the task is essentially doubled in science and when you start to listen to the lyrics of that song man I mean really listen to him it all starts to make perfect sense only you know what it doesn't really matter because now you're wearing a poncho and acting out your very own Spaghetti Western in a whole country [Music] somehow along the way you get caught up in fighting the rebels alongside the Mexican Government before then switching sides and eventually helping the rebels overtake the government interacting with all of these colorful characters along the way from a retired Gunslinger through to the captain living the army what I think is really cool too is how this game is not afraid to betray other characters as being more badass than John is it's like with a lot of other games in general they always kind of make it so you feel like you're playing as the guy who's really like the cream of the crop like look at Nico for instance in GTA 4 you'd put your money on that guy winning a fight nine times out of ten oh no oh [ __ ] my pants but in Red Dead you frequently encounter these Side characters that you just know could really [ __ ] Jon up even just like the Marshall for instance sounds fun what's happening let's first consider this guy's line of work right which is dangerous enough to begin with but then also consider how old he is which kind of suggests that he's obviously pretty damn good at his job if he's still alive kicking get down from that horse boy or I'll shoot during that one Mission when you come across that poor settlement taken over by the bandits when the gang investigates the nearby Barn you'll even notice that he draws his guns faster than Jon does honestly it happens so quickly you might not even see it but if you go back and watch the whole thing in slow motion you you can see he's just that little bit faster on the draw that John is later on in Mexico when you made the infamous Gunslinger land and rickets you see yet again a guy in a very dangerous profession who's like a bazillion years old and still not dead and the fact this guy teases you an upgraded Dead Eye technique again shows you just how proficient he is also like a pretty cool fan Theory here that this guy's actually read Harlow from the first game which I guess kind of explains how it could be the only person to show Jon an upgraded version of the Dead Eye I can handle a gun okay partner I can't emphasize enough here just how much different the game becomes once you get to Mexico it's almost kind of like you're playing a different game at this point and the overall plot of trying to bring your former buddies to Justice now just seems like a distant memory it's all about causing all that Mayhem South of the Border and these are outright just some of the best missions in the entire game and again I want to say too if you don't try on that Poncho and spend at least a few hours with it during this portion of the game well you're playing the whole thing wrong the only issue I think this story has is that it really does kind of deflate as you get near the end of the campaign campaign I don't know store I suppose or your wife Center regards because after that epic shootout in the fort and then literally overthrowing an entire government it goes back to really just being the smaller Petty problems of like a handful of people it's over man the final town that serves as like your base of operations is named Blackwater and this place is like the first Bastion for the new West completely different to everywhere you've just been and explored the streets are paved the buildings are neat and tidy and the area seems mostly free of crime people in the town are upstanding and neatly dressed and you kind of feel like a piece of trash that's been blown in by a stiff breeze these final few missions also feel just mostly by the numbers and while they're not bad they feel kind of much more toned down after what you've just been through and experienced mostly just involves riding to one place shooting a bunch of people and then writing back there's another mission involving a machine gun but I mean by this point you've literally done that like two or three times so it has kind of lost its luster and then I mean damn dog the entire Final Chapter takes place as John pretty much hangs his guns up and becomes a Rancher trying to mend the relationships with his wife and son an illiterate Gunslinger you sure know how to make a girl blush you go back to herding cattle again yippee and shooting crows off the top of the silo alone we're dealing with a corn shortage at Bonnie's Ranch oh no I guess they ran out of Follow the Leader CDs one entire Mission here is just driving a wagon all the way to Bonnie's Ranch watching a scene as John unloads the wagon then riding all the way back to the ranch and I get that this is intentional and by design plus I think on some level it's trying to lull you into like a false sense of security maybe trying to replicate to how boring John's life has become and also how out of place he is when he attempts to fit back into modern society of course my angel get out of there you ever see that movie Shawshank Redemption there's a classic scene in it where a character named Brooks is released from prison after being locked up for decades and it should be a joyous occasion only the guy's been in there for so long that he's become accustomed to life on the inside and at this point he doesn't know any different so when he tries to return to the so-called normal World he's out of place and everything feels alien to him that's kind of like what it looks like with John to me the guy who's been a career Outlaw living on the road and avoiding the authorities for most of his life now suddenly has to abide by the rules and tend to his own little pocket of Earth the outfit he wears during this sequence is plain and boring and compared to almost every single other outfit in the game it doesn't have any Buffs or attributes at all Plus at this point in the story you can't change out of it come on old man you know when guy'll beat you in Street Fighter 2 when he says go home and be a family man it's almost kind of men is like an ironic insult as in you know there's genuinely nothing wrong with being a family man take it from me but when you apply it to a nomadic character like John yeah it starts to have a bit more meaning then when you finally get to that ending horrible as it is it starts to make sense and it's one of those rare instances when a video game has literally left me speechless humans kind of still hurts thinking about it now that's a nice way to greet somebody where Red Dead still truly shines as well even all these years laid up is the music and you've really got to give Rockstar credit for the music they put in their games I mean just go compare the sound soundtrack in a game like Bully for instance to something like the Warriors [Laughter] [Music] well then you know Manhunt to now something like Red Dead Redemption [Music] this also comes from the peak era of dynamic soundtracks which means the game adjusts the music depending on the player's actions almost like you've got your very own customized soundtrack Going On the entire time foreign you'll hear this assortment of weed and Orthodox instruments which kind of sounds like a bunch of people playing around inside an old Tin Shed but crafting this bizarre and really captivating mood the music captures the loneliness and the vast sense of the Outback being desolate and Barren but then it also changes during those moments of combat just never really sitting in one place [Music] now get behind that Outhouse ain't sure we've seen the last of them gonna be handy too because there's gonna be a lot of moments in this when you're just out in the middle of nowhere by yourself whether you're off hunting animals or clearing gang hideouts whatever the case may be there's always going to be something in the background to help keep you cemented into the game world yeah and how about those graphics and that backdrop damn Mr Marston back in the land of the living I see it's actually like a really smart setting from a technical aspect if you think about it because unlike a lot of other open world games which often take place in cities where you've got to have cars and pedestrians running around the entire time in Red Dead it's the complete opposite here it's vast and usually empty and you're not expecting to come across people just randomly walking around in bum [ __ ] nowhere because you know what would you either way though it's just a gorgeous looking game especially during sunrise and sunset there's never been any kind of official remaster for this thing but if you've got an Xbox series X and a copy of the game on the 360 the series X does that wonderful thing he wrote cleans the whole image up making it almost look like the kind of thing you'd see come out in 2022 I mean yeah some of the character models in the animations do look a bit dated now but the environments themselves you know that being the element which takes up 80 of the screen I think still looks amazing I don't know what the going rate is for environmental artists worked in the video game industry these days but I can guarantee whoever worked on this definitely got underpaid a big issue open world games can often have is that all these areas of the map start to look familiar I mean look at all the Far Cry games where the trees on one side of the island often look the same as the trees on the other the thing is though Red Dead doesn't seem to have that issue and there is just such a stark difference in the wildlife and the vegetation throughout each area but then also with the people in the architecture Peter and I think you could show me like a screenshot of any random location here and I could probably tell you exactly where it is 99 of the time when I'd run out of things to do in this game I'd often just get on a train and stare off into the scenery as this train went along it's rude just admiring how nice everything looked and I mean when a game is enough to keep you hooked off something that mundane you know it's got to be good the constant presence of creatures and critters running around here also helps to make it feel like a living breathing world ah time for a cigarette oh you also kind of feel too like there's an underrated Simplicity to the map in this game I mean even though it's pretty damn big you still really only split up between two parts of the map here north and south north being America and South being Mexico it's almost kind of old school in a sense like how Grand Theft Auto 3 was split up into three main islands Vice City being split up into two and then GTA 4 again being split up into four and again not to hit more [ __ ] on Red Dead Redemption 2 but that is a big part of why I think that game ultimately didn't hook me as much as this did it's just a good example of how making something bigger and more complex doesn't necessarily make it better yes I get it being able to eat food change your clothes and shave your ball sack is a nice attention to detail but [ __ ] man sometimes all you want to do is get off your horse without having to sit through a [ __ ] 15 second long animation you feel me that's what I think too no matter how many Red Dead games or Grand Theft Auto games come out they're all just going to be doing inferior versions of What the first game managed to pull off Red Dead redempt really has the fortune of being the first of its kind in that way not so much for the genre of open world games but I think definitely for the genre of open world Western game and it's one of those instances where no matter how long I talk about it or how in depth I get I'm still only going to be scratching the surface of what it has to offer I mean damn dog I haven't even really touched on the multiplayer mode the unlockable outfits or the DLC oh yeah the DLC as something of a swan song to Standalone expansion packs Rockstar released Undead Nightmare in Halloween of 2010 as a spin-off from the original game's Story one where Jon returns home just as a zombie apocalypse takes place yeah nice timing funnily enough to this expansion pack came out days before the first season of The Walking Dead did and it was really at the Forefront of the zombie movement before games just become inundated with them and super oversaturated I mean consider after this that Call of Duty Black Ops would come out it's really cementing that game's zombie mode is one of the most popular modes in the entire my Cod series Lock and Load and then we'd get Dead Island telltale's The Walking Dead series Lollipop Chainsaw DayZ and State of Decay and that was only in the first three years that followed funny kind of Salvation anyway this is a pretty damn good expansion pack and I think it has just the right kind of pacing for an opening letting you settle into things before then dropping that bomb that the country's been taken over by this Zombie Plague during the opening cinematic the first person we see turn is Uncle who Jon quickly beats to death with a lamp and I think everyone who's familiar with that character from the base game probably wished that Jon just did that a lot sooner that's a nice way to greet somebody in fact I don't think John even knew that Uncle was a zombie I think he was just killing him out of principle for busting injure in the middle of the night Dad you killed the zombie Flanders he was a zombie either way though he makes the common rookie zombie killing Mistake by not aiming for the head so shortly after that both Abigail and get infected and turn John then ties him up for their own safety as he heads off to Blackwater to see what's going on and I like to how he's nice enough to leave them plates of food for when he's gone Jack be kind to your mother as you get to Blackwater you soon find out this whole Zombie thing is a real pandemic and you eventually end up back at Mexico for the finale as you put to rest some cursed Aztec gold now I remember playing this for the first time when it came out and finishing the entire main missions in a single sitting I mean that's how much I enjoyed it for my first playthrough and this is just such a good ERA for really great video game expansions along with Minerva's Den for BioShock 2 and Lair of the Shadow broker for Mass Effect 2. seeing all of these returning characters some of whom are supposed to be Dead coming back again just feels like borderline fan fiction and it captures everything that made Rockstar such fun developers back then just kind of highlights too how boring their games have now become it just seems they no longer take chances like this and make these kind of experiences anymore ain't it always well they're loading too many first just shut the goddamn border or things like this happen the main issue this expansion has though is the outside of the few main missions there's really quite a lot of repetition to the content I mean practically every single enemy in the game now are zombies I mean no surprise and killing these guys is just a matter of shooting them in the head regardless of what type they are whether they beat normal fast or fat yeah man the best cure for a zombie has always been a shotgun to the face and this still Rings true and Undead Nightmare then apart from that you're also going around cleansing graveyards by burning coffins and stopping off in towns to help the survivors fight back against the zombies going around to all these NPCs and giving them like a handful of bullets because that speeds the processor and the shooting is still okay but it also wasn't really a shooting system designed with horde shooting mine you don't have that many crowd control options and even the ones you do have are really limited because of the reduced amount of ammo you get a blunderbuss which is awesome in concept only you have to make your own ammo with this thing by picking up the body parts of zombies you've already killed and it just doesn't feel like it does enough widespread damage to justify how much time you spend having to loot zombie corpses to make the ammo also too zombie corpses is that a double negative the actual story missions are entertaining and again have some pretty funny interactions with Jon and all these returning characters you've got the compassion of a mass murderer and the intellect of a cow patty stick your faith in this gun where the sun don't shine and it is fun to explore this bizarre timeline that Strays off the Canon story it's kind of like in Back to the Future when Marty returns to 1985 and finds that Biff is now basically Donald Trump what the hell is that the dialogue between John and all of these random mouth-breathing rednecks you come across is just hilarious as well really captures the hysteria of what might have happened if a zombie outbreak ever occurred at a time when most people couldn't even spell their own names I ain't one of them you fool how do I know they can't speak but the best thing about the DLC is how it's just full-on leans into being batshit insane they fully embrace the cheese here with an intro iteration that sounds like the guy from The Haunted Mansion in Disneyland Marston awaits whatever life will throw at him when hinges Creak in doorless Chambers even being able to go out there and find the four horses of the apocalypse and even tame them these horses are dope too man they're super fast and they have infinite stammer which is handy because fast travels all but done away with here but then once you've finished all the main missions there's just not that much incentive to keep playing and it's like they're somehow managed to find a worse fate for John here than what happens to him at the end of the base game overall though yeah it's still entertaining and I still remember spending hours trying to find that [ __ ] chupacabra in Mexico plus it really made me wish that Rockstar would get back into making single player expansions for the games stay there wise deal with your half-witted son Red Dead Redemption size and scale I think is probably the main reason why I don't replay it as much as I replay other games that I'm fully obsessed with you know like Max Payne and Metal Gear Solid three I have a way to say both how I desires but I think it status of Rockstar's best not to mention just a really great Pioneer for the open world genre is something that few can argue with I don't know why they still haven't ported this thing to PC I really think Rockstar just hates seeing their fans happy these days especially if that GTA Definitive Edition is anything to go off but maybe keeping it on the consoles was all part of the plan I sure can say that reclining back on my couch and dropping six Bandits at a time with John's Dead Eye ability along with riding my horse off into these Serene sunsets still ranks up there as some of the most fun I've ever had with this Hobby and I don't think that any number of sequels or prequels they go on to make will ever change that sounds [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: GmanLives

Views: 342,303

Keywords: red dead redemption review, red dead redemption, red dead redemption 2, red dead, rockstar games, john marston, red dead 2, video games, red dead revolver, grand theft auto, arthur morgan, red dead 2 gameplay, red dead 2 review, red dead redemption 2 gameplay, game reviews, xbox one, red dead redemption pc, wild west, red dead online, xbox one x, grand theft auto 3, rockstar games evolution, gggmanlives, gmanlives

Id: LOx0k4jthpk

Length: 41min 13sec (2473 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 06 2022